


Batter up

by cirque



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: stay in the fucking house Carl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-30
Updated: 2013-06-30
Packaged: 2017-12-16 15:18:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/863482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cirque/pseuds/cirque
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He tries to stay out of trouble, he really does, and if he happens to see a Walker while he's doing that, well, it's the zombie apocalypse. What do you expect?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Batter up

**Author's Note:**

> Carl's a creepy lil dude, amirite?

It isn't like he goes looking for trouble. No, he does useful things, practical things like scouting for food and keeping watch even though he's been told not to, gathering weapons and picking through spare ammo to see what they can use. He tries to stay out of trouble, he really does, and if he happens to see a Walker while he's doing that, well, it's the zombie apocalypse. What do you expect?

He's learned a lot since the world went to shit. How to curse properly, for one thing (thanks Shane). How to aim a gun and actually hit what you're shooting at (thanks Dad). The exact taste of tinned peaches that are just slightly off as you drip them on the tip of your tongue. How long it takes a standard Wal-Mart candle to burn out. What it smells like when your friend dies, reanimates, and is obliterated right in front of your eyes.

So yeah. Carl likes to think he's grown up enough to handle 'trouble', in all his mother's various definitions.

He sits with his back to the bank of the stream. If he listens carefully enough he can hear sounds issuing from the house. Someone, probably his mom, is preparing dinner. Tinned sardines. Again.

There is a Walker caught in Hershel's mud trap. He knows he should probably tell someone, especially after _last time,_ but last time Carl wasn't prepared and this time he is. He's in the zone. The Walker is practically tying itself in knots trying to get free and Carl is watching this with the same dim disinterest with which he used to watch those stupid documentaries at school.

God, he wishes he had a video camera right now.

The Walker raises a fleshy hand in a weak attempt to grasp him. Carl doesn't flinch and this seems to piss it off even more because it wails like a stuck pig and stretches its hand out so much that a coupla rotting fingers drop right off. Carl grins at this. _Niiice_.

Carl surveys the weapons he has at his disposal, spread along the bank beside where he crouchs. He has something that used to be a crowbar but has been sharpened beyond recognition. Andrea calls it the crow-axe. He has a gun but he's not sure how many bullets he has ( _rookie mistake_ , he thinks in Shane's voice). He has a knife he filched from the kitchen that he probably shouldn't have touched without asking Hershel. He has a baseball bat. He likes this the most; he touches it with awe and imagines that the Walker admires it, too. Carl used to like baseball, a while ago. Shane used to play with him.

He picks up the bat. It is a nice weight, lighter than he remembers but maybe he's just stronger these days. Yeah. Stronger. He thwacks it against the palm of his left hand a couple times for effect, and the Walker turns its head at the sound. It near turns its head 360 as it strains to locate the source of the noise. Carl laughs a little at that.

He could taunt it, easily. He has taunted Walkers before and he prides himself in this area. But it wouldn't take much for someone from the house to hear him and he wants to keep this one all to himself, so he steals himself and keeps his mouth shut.

He takes a swing with the baseball bat. He misses, and almost overbalances and ends up head first in the mud beside the Walker. He steadies himself. The Walker gurgles in anger. Carl swings again, feet braced for the impact, and the bat slams into the Walker's abdomen with a satisfying sinking noise. The Walker doesn't even blink. Huh.

Carl pulls back for a second swing and feels the sticky sensation of rotting flesh as he dislodges the bat from the Walker. It borders on bona fide yuck, because he is certain that most Walkers are dry and crumbly as opposed to… fresh. He should ask Dad about that. Later. Maybe.

Batter up. He swings. He catches the Walker's hand and the rest of its fingers fall off, followed, after a moment, by the entire hand. Cool.

His third swing breaks at least three ribs; he hears them crack one by one and it reminds him of the sound Pepsi cans make when you open them ice cold.

His fourth swing misses completely, but the Walker stumbles as it tries to reach him and Carl whips around for the backswing. This time he manages to knock the head onto a right angle. The Walker looks mildly perplexed, but its spinal column is still mostly intact (if a little squished, Carl thinks with a grimace) so it continues grasping at him.

His fifth swing is the triumphant one; he hits the head clean off. There is a glorious moment in which Carl thinks the head is actually going to sour through the air like in the movies, but then it hits the mud with a dull _gloop_ and the rest of the body follows suit.

Carl sinks back onto his elbows, tired and feeling like a hero. He drops the baseball bat and the crusting zombie blood sticks a little on the grass around the bank. He pants and tries to catch his breath but maybe it’s the adrenaline because it feels like his lungs are on fire.

He looks at the dead-undead-dead-again corpse in the mud. It looks pathetic now, and Carl feels a little sad for it, the same way he used to feel sad when they passed roadkill in the car, all smeared up along the highway in Rorschach patterns. Carl wonders what the Walker's name used to be. Maybe he used to like baseball. Maybe he had a son who maybe went to Carl's school.

His breathing manages to even out and he lays in the relative silence of the wood. His stomach rumbles. Even though it's only sardines, he wishes dinner was ready.

Eventually he grows bored. Sitting on the bank is only interesting when there is a Walker in the trap and so he straightens up and gathers his weaponry back into his pack. He should probably go find Andrea, give her back her crow-axe.

He walks tall and straight when he leaves the woodland.

He doesn't tell anyone about the Walker. Just like he didn't tell them yesterday, or last week, or just like he most definitely did not tell them about the Walker he killed with a loose strip of barbed wire from the edge of the paddocks.

Mom would flip, for one thing.


End file.
